


Swear A Blue Streak Up My Arm

by mia6363



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Awkward Flirting, Awkwardness, Blushing, Dizzy Puppies, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Just Because You Found Your Soulmate Doesn't Mean It Gets Easier, Rare Pairings, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 04:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15501912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mia6363/pseuds/mia6363
Summary: Her name was Kira Yukimura, and Finstock met her in a bookstore a few counties over. She was barely thirty, she was beautiful, and within seconds of meeting her, Kira’s mother slapped himhardacross the face.





	Swear A Blue Streak Up My Arm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Malapropian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malapropian/gifts).



Finstock wasn’t nervous because he didn’t get nervous, especially during lacrosse games. _Thank God it’s not a fucking semifinals game,_ he thought as he took a long slug from his water bottle, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“Wake _up_ and stop _sleeping on the field, Greenberg!”_ Finstock shrieked, running down the field. “No excuses!” 

He told himself he didn’t feel eyes on the back of his neck as he worked his way through the game, his legs bouncing during half-time, hard enough that a few of the players raised a few eyebrows. None of them were brave enough to ask, which Finstock was grateful for. They won, by a _hair,_ and Finstock had sweated through his shirt and jacket, his hands were shaking, and his skin was blotchy, hot, and sticky. 

“Coach,” Liam gently tapped Coach’s arm. “You okay?” 

If Finstock had been paying attention, he would have noticed that the game was over, that everyone was heading into the locker rooms, but he hadn’t moved from the bench. He would have taken a moment to stop wringing his hands, to stop gnawing on his lower lip, and to not let it get to the point where his team had to beg their captain to say something. 

“I’m fucking golden, Liam.” He got up, clapping his hands together. “You did good work, but it could always be _better,_ kids. Let’s get going!” 

He headed up the back of his team off the field, something he did after every game, and yet that night it felt like he was delaying the inevitable. 

He changed his shirt, wiped his face off with a towel, and once the last kid had gone… he went out to the parking lot. 

Sure enough, waiting by his car, was a young woman who looked just as nervous as him. He waved, feeling like the world’s biggest asshole when her lips pulled into one of the most forced smiles he’d been subjected to in the last five years. 

Not a lot of people _smiled_ at Finstock, but anything was better than _forced._

“Hey.” There were so many things about himself that he’d never paid attention to, like how tall he was, how _rough and frayed_ his voice was, until he watched her body language become more and more tense, her eyes not wavering from his even as her arm snaked across her stomach to cling to her other arm. “Uh, thanks for coming to the game.” 

“It was fun.” Her cheeks were pink, getting redder and redder with every passing second. “I mean, I don’t get the rules, but you were having… fun?” She ducked her head. “I mean, can you have fun when you’re a coach? I’ve never coached anything before—” She shook her head and slapped her hands over her face, hard enough that Finstock flinched. “Oh my God. I’m sorry. I’m just… really nervous.” 

_You’re nervous? **I’m** nervous, I ruined a shirt because I was shitting myself the entire fucking game,_ Finstock was tempted to blurt out. Instead he cleared his throat. 

“Yeah well, me too.” He scratched the back of his head and when she pulled her hands away from her face it made her hair a little frizzy around her face. “Look, there’s not a lot of places that are open now, but there are some. How about we start with coffee?” 

She nodded. 

“Coffee,” she rubbed the inside of her right arm, and this time when she smiled it actually reached her eyes. “I can do coffee.” 

Her name was Kira Yukimura, and Finstock met her in a bookstore a few counties over. She was barely thirty, she was beautiful, and within seconds of meeting her, Kira’s mother slapped him _hard_ across the face. He can’t really blame her. He never really thought about his love of swearing, of not giving a shit about what words he used to express himself… until he saw it tattooed on another person’s arm. 

_“I highly recommend that one,”_ he hadn’t been thinking, he’d only seen a pale hand going for one of his favorite books of all time, _“it’s going to knock your motherfucking socks off. Cross my fucking heart. It’s going to ruin you.”_

Finstock hadn’t been thinking, because he was used to spreading his wisdom like tinsel on a tree, carelessly and quickly. He was already thinking of the next section he was going to scrutinize, maybe dive into the bargain bins to see if anything was worth it, when an older hand closed around his arm and _yanked_ him back around. 

The words on his arm, that he never looked at if he could help it, were _This is unexpected._

Three words that always made his mother sigh when she got a good look at him. _Unexpected._ Finstock’s life fucking story. He never cared about them… until he heard the words on a random weekend, in a random bookstore, as he was pulled around. Whispered, barely audible but he heard them, felt them burn into his skin, right before her mother slapped him. 

Kira took her jacket off in the diner, and her t-shirt did nothing to hide her inner arm. 

“Sorry about the—” 

Kira covered the side of her face where Finstock had been clocked by her mother. Finstock waved off her concern. 

“I get it.” 

He wondered if his parents would be happy that, for the first time in years, Finstock felt something that felt a lot like embarrassment. Shame. When people looked at Finstock, they saw him for what he was. Wild. Weird. Loud. When he looked at Kira… he saw someone who was sweet. Someone who he’d never guess would have his _words_ on her arm. 

“My mom was just surprised. Technically, she’s relieved. My whole life she thought I was going to be a drug addict or something.” 

“Oh shit,” Finstock’s stomach dropped to the floor, his face going grey. “Oh _shit,_ I didn’t even _think_ about that.” He noticed that she took her coffee black, and his heart squeezed a little when she sipped her coffee with a shrug. “My words make sense. Look at me,” he circled his face with his finger, “no one expects this.” 

Kira snorted, her smile crooked and _gorgeous._

“Expectations are boring.” 

Her eyes were brown and Finstock had a feeling he was going to have to get used to the feeling of _wow. I have a soulmate… Kira Yukimura is my **soulmate.**_

“Yeah.” He was blushing and Kira’s smile widened. Heat crawled down his neck and chest as he smiled back. “Yeah, okay.” 

All the soulmate stories Finstock had ever heard always ended at the first meeting, when they heard each other’s words and just fell into each other’s arms. They always ended the same way, with a lot of kissing, rushing back to someone’s house or apartment, and fucking the night away. The connections were easy and instantaneous. 

Finstock hardly knew his soulmate. He knew she liked her coffee black, she was a teacher a few towns over, and because of the words on her arm, knew the ins and outs of narcotics addiction and recovery. He knew that she flushed pink when she giggled, but when she _really_ laughed, loud enough to throw her head back, she’d hide her face, her shoulders shaking with the effort to quiet down. 

He knew that his soulmate’s mother was very protective and that her slaps _stung._

Kira stopped at five cups of coffee and ordered tapioca pudding because she felt bad about the low bill and she _liked_ tapioca pudding. He purposely waited until after she’d taken the first spoonful to shake his head with a, “I can’t believe you’re putting that shit in your mouth,” with a smile.

She laughed and accidentally kicked his shin, hard enough to bruise. 

“Fuck,” Kira reached out to touch him, almost spilling his coffee, “fuck, I’m sorry.” 

“You’re good,” he had to move quickly to keep his cup from spilling, and they hit their hands together hard enough to make his fingertips sting. Her cheeks were red and he couldn’t remember the last time he smiled so much that his face ached. “You’re so good.” 

They first met in a bookstore, where Finstock had ducked in to hide from the rain and ended up meeting his soulmate and angering her mother all within seconds. Kira had been wide-eyed and relatively shocked into silence after she’d whispered the words that were on Finstock’s arm. It was a weird day, where a lot of folks stared as Finstock apologized as he offered her his number. He felt bad, and not just because his cheek throbbed and would definitely need to be iced later. 

On the day they met, Finstock thought, _a sweet girl like that should have better words than mine._

The next time they met, after coffee and a long debate about tapioca and desserts, Finstock helped her put on her jacket. She shivered in the diner parking lot and pushed her right jacket sleeve up to expose the first words Finstock said to her. 

“You know,” Kira ran her fingers over the text and the image was enough to make Finstock’s heart stutter in his chest. “I like them now that I know who they’re from.”

They didn’t swoon and fall into each other’s arms, instantly at ease and euphoric for the rest of their lives. Finstock’s hands shook because of the coffee and the company. He walked her to her car, and for the first time he was nervous about saying goodbye. 

“Your words aren’t so bad either. You nailed it.” 

She put out her hand and Finstock immediately went to shake it. She frowned. 

“Would a hug be too weird?” 

“No. Well,” Finstock shrugged. “We won’t know until we try.” 

It wasn’t weird. Not as much as Finstock might have thought, hugging a stranger-who-was-also-his-soulmate in the Beacon Hills diner parking lot. She smelled like coffee and mint. Her hair tickled his nose and Finstock lifted her up. Kira made a soft noise of surprise before she pulled him closer, her shoes dangling a few inches above the ground. 

“This is better.” 

They had to part eventually. They had work in the morning. Other stories be damned, the world didn’t _stop_ for soulmates. When she pulled away, Finstock felt soft lips against his cheek. It was feather-light, and he might have thought it was his imagination if Kira wasn’t scarlet. 

“Next time,” his voice was a dry rasp, “how about we do a proper dinner?”

The funny thing about soulmates was that it was random, no amount of reasoning could explain the phenomenon, could rationalize the pairing and how it worked. Finstock hadn’t treated that day any different, and it lead to his heart pounding faster and faster as Kira’s lips pulled back into a luminous grin.

**Author's Note:**

> This is all because of MAL who has slowly been helping me to write SHORTER things that aren't miles and miles long because I simply don't have the time. I love this pairing and dang it, I'm determined to fill the tag until someone else uses it. Or until I become tired. Who knows. 
> 
> This is a short little thing, I've never done the soulmate trope but I thought this would be a fun exercise. Please, pretty please, leave a comment even if you weren't a fan.
> 
> Come say hi to me on [**tumblr**](http://mia6363.tumblr.com/).


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